Raymond Felton’s play at the point — 15.8 points, 6.3 assists and controlling the tempo — may have been down lately but it remains a key reason the Knicks are 21-8 and near the top of the Eastern Conference.

However, for the next month or so they will have to find out what life without him is like.

X-rays have shown he has a fractured little finger on his shooting hand, an injury that could require surgery and he says he expects to miss more than a month. Here are the details, via Newsday.

Initially Felton described the injury as a sprained ligament, suffered when he and the Lakers’ Steve Nash were going for a ball on Tuesday.

But that proved to be overly optimistic. Felton was to return to New York Thursday to be evaluated by team doctors. He said surgery is a possibility. If that is the course of action, Felton said, there is no reason to believe it would end his season, but it could cost him four to six weeks.

It’s not good news for a Knicks team that has of late struggled from three and soon has to figure out how to integrate Amare Stoudemire back into the rotation. (Iman Shumpert will come back in a little while, too, but he will blend in more smoothly.)

No Felton is going to mean more minutes for Pablo Prigioni, the “rookie” from Argentina who at age 35 has spent so much time at the top of the European circuit it’s not fair to really call him a rookie. Jason Kidd, who has played a lot as the two guard, also will get run at the point now. That’s not exactly a young twosome, but with 15 guys on the roster don’t expect them to make a move to bring in someone (not that there are quality free agent point guards out there right now).